incubator will NOT get above 97 degrees help

ok I know Ive bugged everyone about this a few days ago-When I put my first eggs in 2 days ago the bator temp went wayyyy down took bout 24 hours to get back up then I recieved my 24 eggs in the mail-was expecting to put all them in at once-didnt work out that way-opened the bator to put them in yesterday at 5pm and the incubator will not NOT go beyond 97-98ish...I have a hovabator--I fixed the wafer in again too o increase but not working will I damage my eggs-aremy chances still good if I can finally get the temp up to 100? ahhh

You might want to put a heat lamp over the bator until it gets up to temp. I have found it is hard to get the temp up initially, once there it is easier to maintain. You may need to adjust the tstat again.

Hello if this is a stralfoam or plastic incubator insulate it from outside temperatures with a towel or 2.
I assume you tried adjusting the thermostat. also use 2 or 3 thermometers to set temperture correctly a dropped thermometer will not read true for several hours from my exsperance.Good luck hope to hear of a great hatch.

I have it finally up to 99.7-I'm not going to touch it-I know a still air bator should be a higher temp but I cant stress anymore about this-It's freaking me out--I'm even afraid to candle come MOnday--what would you do?

24 eggs is quite a bit for a standard table top bator. It can take 24hrs to come back up to temp every time you add that many eggs (or even fewer sometimes) that were room temp. If you touched the temp dial it will probably go over eventually when all the eggs get warmed up. I would wait 2 or 3 days before turning it up unless you can be there to watch it frequently including checking over night. Too low is safer than too high. If it sits too low for a few days nothing will likely happen but if it goes too high for even a couple hours you may lose some. It should be back up to temp by monday but if you just put eggs in 2 days ago that would be Wednesday. Unless you are experienced at candling and have light shelled eggs you won't see anything until they are at least 7days old anyway. There's no point candling before then. Some don't even candle before 10days. You might as well wait till wednesday or friday next week.

Do not put a heat lamp over it. It will do crazy things and may even keep the thermostat from turning on and heating the bator properly. I once left a flashlight that used an incandescent bulb pointed into my bator on the side with the heat wafer. It triggered the heat wafer so it always read warm even when the bator temp was dropping. It got down to 90F before I figured out why. You also risk completely over heating your bator if you use a stronger bulb since it won't turn off at a certain temp.